Chapter 17 : Management at Work The Temptations of Tempting

Case question 1. Youre a senior manager at a growing business and youre ready to add employees. Your HR manager has recommended a temp-to-perm policy. You know the advantages of this approach, but what might be some of the disadvantage?

In recent years, the number of temporary employees has increased dramatically. The advantages of this approach had made the company had save cost. Temporary employment allows an employer to hire the employees when they need someone for specific tasks or times such as when their permanent employee had maternity leaves for a long time and the same time they need someone to handle the project. Once the contract of extra employee ends, the company does not need to lay off the employee to leads in additional paperwork. Besides that, temporary employment also can be a good way to test them whether he or she are a good for the company before hiring them for permanent employees.

Disadvantage when hiring a temporary worker is a temporary worker is unable to perform their job adequately or does not get along with other employees. When company only use temporary workers for a long time, the company may spend a lot of time to teach them for each project. It can cause loss in productivity of your project. Besides that, temporary cant get basic benefits such as retirement plans and pensions. It only available to permanent employees.

2. Assume that youre a prospective job seeker (which you may very well be). What do you personally see as the advantages and disadvantages of taking a temp-to-perm position? Under what circumstances are you most likely to take a temp-to-perm position?

As a student, working temporary help us to gain side income especially during semester holiday. We just need to work by a short period such as on holiday season. It helps us to gain experienced working beside get income. Besides that, for me it can help me gain new knowledge that I can used in my daily life especially when I am entered in real working world. Temporary agencies also can be as test career out before committing it. But there has also some disadvantage when doing this temporary work. We cant get same benefits as permanent workers get for example health insurance, pension plan and others. Lack of control over working hours because usually we had to work by shift. Our wages also does not high as permanent workers. For me, I dont have any problems to work as temporary worker because I can do two works at the same time. For example, I can take a job that need me work from house because at the same time I can focused on my study.

3. What sort of challenges are likely to confront a manager who supervises a mix of temporary and permanent employees? In what ways might these challenges differ if the temporary workers have been hired on a temp-to-perm basis rather than on a strictly temporary basis?

In these challenges, as a manager we had to face the problems when to manage two type of employees which is permanent employees and temporary employees. The most challenges when manage this two type of employees is to understand their advantages and disadvantages. We had to simplify and manage their needs. As we know, the advantages is more to side permanent employees. But nowadays, an increasing trend is use more temporary workers without the risk that the organization may have to eliminate their jobs especially during festival season. Lets us look into benefits that company will had when take temporary employees. Companies can get a chance to see employees in action before finalizing hiring decisions. Because there are no fees to pay when an employee goes from temporary to permanent, trying out temporary is also cheaper than paying an agency outright to find a hire. In this situation we should look what the objective when we hired permanent and temporary employees. Of course, permanent is more important to the companies because they know what their functions to company. In other hand, temporary employees is more helping permanent employees to solve their works. Me as manager, I will take this two type of employees to work in our company, because they will help us to gain our goal with effectively and efficiently.

Reference

For some, a Patchwork of Jobs Pays the Bills. Boston.com, March 27,2009 , www.boston.com on April 15,2011 Kristin Kridel, Overqualified Applying for Temporary Work, Spokesman.com, March 4, 2009. www.spokesman.com on April 15,2011 Anne Fisher, Be a Manager and a Temp? CNNMoney.com, March 16,2009, www.cmfassociates.com on April 15,2011 Sital Patel, Skill Level of Temp Workers Rises amid Recession, Fox Business, February 27,2009, www.jobs-work-employment.com on April 15,2011 U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, news release December 2010, www.bls.gov.on March 31, 2009 BLS. Table 12. Private Industry, by Industry Group and Full Time and Part Time Status,, new release , December 2010, www.bls.gov on April 15, 2011